Portrait of Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (c. 1472/77-1528/33)

The slip of paper beside the face carries a code. Its letters are I, W, V and A, with the W turned upside down so that it looks like an M, and they stand for Jacob War van Amsterdam, a name used by the painter Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen. His better-known name works like an address, Jacob, son of Cornelis, from Oostzaan, a village north of Amsterdam.

Below the letters is the year 1533, and the painter died in that year or shortly before. For generations the panel counted as the earliest known self-portrait in northern Netherlandish painting. The Rijksmuseum now gives it to his workshop, probably as a copy of a lost original, and sees in portraits like this one the rising status of artists at the time. When restorers cleaned the panel, they removed a greyish brown layer that had been painted over the background.